The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has announced a four-year, $1.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish a Center for Art, Science & Technology.

A joint initiative of MIT's Office of the Provost, School of Architecture and Planning, and School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, the center will help advance the univsersity's efforts to integrate the arts into the curriculum and research of institutions of higher education. The center seeks to sustain and build on the momentum generated by last spring's Festival of Art, Science and Technology and the publication last summer of a report (137 pages, PDF) on the arts at MIT. The center's director, Evan Ziporyn, the Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Music at MIT, will work closely with a faculty advisory committee and executive director of arts initiatives Leila Kinney to implement the center's mission and activities.

Nearly three-quarters of MIT students matriculate with advanced skills in the arts, and the university has long recognized the role of the arts in educating scientists and engineers and in fostering a genuinely creative culture on campus.

"MIT is arguably one of the only institutions that can combine internationally recognized excellence in science and engineering with a strong and deep heritage in design and the performing and visual arts," said associate provost and Ford International Professor of History Philip S. Khoury, who co-sponsored the center's proposal. "CAST will expand MIT's commitment to 'learning by doing' and support the Mellon Foundation's commitment to the creative arts and their educational value across the curriculum. We are tremendously grateful to Mellon for providing crucial support for this effort."